According to Reuters, US retailers are changing their online strategies this holiday season as chatbots become part of the shopping process. While most of the projected $253 billion in U.S. online sales will occur through traditional website visits and searches, shopper-facing AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini are increasingly being used for product descriptions, price comparisons and direct purchases.
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“We’ve seen brands that previously published three or four new blog posts or articles a month are now trying to publish 100 or 200,” said Brian Stempeck, CEO of Evertune.ai. His company charges clients, including clothing and shoe companies, about $3,000 a month for services that make their websites discoverable by large language models.
Retailers are building read-only websites with AI scrapers, automated tools that search the Internet for information. These scrapers then feed the data to platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini, which provide product suggestions. Retailers are also trying new tactics like posting frequently on branded blogs or writing about products on Reddit, where they can’t advertise directly within larger generative AI tools.
Currently, traffic from generative AI platforms still represents a small portion of overall online activity. Data firm Sensor Tower reported that ChatGPT referrals to Amazon, Walmart, and eBay in October represented less than 1% of each site’s total traffic. An eBay spokesperson noted that although traffic from AI sources is small, shoppers arriving through these channels have high purchase intent.
Bed linen company Brooklinen pays social media influencers to discuss its products on platforms like Facebook, YouTube and TikTok, from which AI scrapers scrape information from text and audio transcripts. Brooklinen also gave away a $199 quilt for prizes from publications like the New York Times Wirecutter to increase its visibility in AI responses. Rachel Levy, Brooklyn-based chief operating officer, described current traffic from agent AI sources as “very small,” attributing that to Generation Z, the primary adopters of these tools, who have less purchasing power.
Miami-based hair care company R+Co is buying ads on Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant based on customer questions for its Rufus dealer. Google has introduced features that help shoppers use artificial intelligence to track prices and purchase goods, through AI placement and a Gemini chatbot that takes into account factors such as store locations and retailer quality when referring links. Google is testing ads in its AI mode in the US, but not in the Gemini app yet, as existing top-performing shopping campaigns are eligible to appear during this test.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on an October earnings call that shoppers who use a Rufus AI agent are 60% more likely to make a purchase. Walmart and Target recently announced plans for apps that will allow people to shop directly using chatbots.
Source: Market intelligence platform IndexBox
